


What heaven is this

by lightly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightly/pseuds/lightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Devils Trap, only Dean makes it out alive, but Sam is still watching him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What heaven is this

What heaven is this

 

I. In this, all things

 

 

All the white was confusing him. The harsh brightness reacted badly with his blurred vision and his head hurt with that kind of nagging dizziness, like he had done one too many laps of bumper cars. It took him what seemed like the longest time to realize that he was lying down, let alone comprehend that someone was talking to him. This strange voice was throwing all kinds of scary words at him, like, ‘problem’ ‘mistake’ ‘bureaucratic error’ ‘deceased’. He wasn’t listening though, he was more interested in figuring out why he wasn’t driving the Impala. He was pretty sure you couldn’t lie down and drive a car at the same time.

It was with a vomit inducing lurch that he achieved clarity.

 

 _“Mr. Winchester, contrary to popular belief, we do not have eternity.”_

He didn’t actually think he moved, but suddenly he found himself on his feet looking down at an impossibly tiny man, who, despite being clad in crisp white, still managed to look grey. The little white/grey man continued to talk at him but those little white/grey lips didn’t move.

 _“Mr. Winchester, have you listened to a word I have said? This is important.”_

“Wait, am I dead?”

His voice sounded odd to his own ears. It echoed around the vast cavernous white, bouncing off walls that weren’t there.

 _“Yes Mr. Winchester, I have just explained this to you. We are very sorry for the inconvenience. Now, let us see about sending you back.”_

“Sending me back where?”

 _“To Earth of course. Really, Mr. Winchester, you need to learn to pay attention. Obviously we can not send you back the way you were. Time has passed and you were, well, best not to go into detail. Are you ready?”_

“Ready? Ready for what?”

 

All the whiteness was confusing, but it was nothing to having it suddenly melt away in a mass of color. He found himself blinking up at a sun that didn’t burn his eyes. He really wasn’t sure of much right now but he had a pretty good idea that the universe was fucking with him. He remembered times when he truly thought his life was one big cosmic joke. Usually, these thoughts hit him during the long hours waiting around in hospitals for his dad and brother to get patched up.

Now, finally he had proof.

 

***

 

II. This new world

 

 

Dean looked broken. Or at least the angry shadow of the Dean that Sam had known looked broken. Sam kept his distance as he watched his brother slouch towards his motel room. Everything about him looked different, he looked wrong. He walked with a stoop, letting the world bear down on him. His eyes stayed straight ahead, he didn’t even cast a glance at the pretty girls who had nothing but smiles for him.

Sam wasn’t sure why he was standing back. The little white/grey man had assured him that Dean would be unaware of his presence until Sam showed himself. But this was Dean they were talking about and Sam knew that, somehow, Dean would know he was there. Sam still hadn’t worked out how to have the; ‘Didn’t you die?’ ‘Yeah, well, but. . .’ conversation yet. He had a feeling that it wasn’t going to go well and the last thing he needed was for Dean to try and exorcise his ass. Not that he was sure that would even work.

As if on cue, Dean turned to look behind him. Sam felt the foreign mass, under the skin of his back, move as Dean scanned the shadows. Of course Dean would know he was being watched, no matter how careful Sam was. Sam was supposed to go to him, it was what he had been sent back for. He just needed a little more time.

Sam was so busy watching his brother that he didn’t notice the young couple that threatened to barrel right into him, or at least, through him. It always left him feeling cold when people did that. He was almost getting used to the whole being here but not, thing. He hadn’t quite got the hand of manipulating his environment yet, hell, it wasn’t like there was an instruction manual for this gig. But he had brought it all down to timing. He waited for people to do things and he would tag along. Slip past when someone opened a door, to a house, a car. This was how he had followed Dean across country, often it would leave him a step or three behind, but he would always catch up in the end.

He did have one sure fire method of transportation though, and again they moved just under his surface in angry protest of his refusal to acknowledge them. He just willed them still, he wasn’t ready to face them just yet.

 

In the quickly dimming light he could see Dean scowl. His older brother’s eyes looked like small pools of black in the dark and Sam felt a sharp stab of pain as he was reminded just why Dean had to spend these last few months alone. If Sam’s heart was still beating it would have skipped when Dean seemed to look right at him. But Dean wasn’t looking at him, he was looking through him.

With a heavy sigh, Sam watched his brother turn and walk away.

 

**

 

III. Same day as yesterday

 

 

Dean now drives a Pontiac GTO, black of course, Sam hates it. The car is a very Dean car, it’s just not _his_ Dean’s car. This car belongs to the shadow Dean, the one that never smiles, the Dean that is doing exactly what he said he would do, he just carries on.

Sam lightly traces his fingers over the hood and smiles as he leaves a trail in the early morning condensation. This car is a ’67 too, Sam knows this from that one summer he spent boning up on classic cars so that he and Dean would have something to talk about other then the best way to kill a werewolf if you lose your gun. Sam didn’t know what happened to the Impala. More than likely it was totaled in the crash, or maybe Dean just couldn’t face driving her again. Blood always was a bitch to get out of the upholstery.

Sam knows that Dean isn’t sleeping inside his crapped out motel, he knows that Dean doesn’t sleep unless he has to these days. His brother’s life has been streamlined down to the basics, enough sleep to stay sharp, food is for nutrition only and he is less than picky about his accommodations. Not that they were staying in five star spreads before, but now, Dean just doesn’t care.

At first, Dean fought with an abandon that was frightening. The werewolf in Pasadena, the poltergeist in Evansville. Dean was less with the research and planning and more with the ‘c’mon bitches it’s party time!’

One day, Dean comes across a wannabe Warlock, some kid who didn’t know what kind of shit he was getting into but still killed a young girl in the name of his ‘power’. Dean beat him until you couldn't recognize him as having a face anymore. But Dean didn’t _put_ him down.

When the dagger flew towards Dean’s back, that was the first time Sam pushed him out of the way.

 _“About time young man.”_

“You’re watching me?”

 _“Yes, and so far, you are not doing your job.”_

“I didn’t want this.”

 _“We can’t change things Mr. Winchester. For your sake I wish we could, but we can’t.”_

 

**

 

IV. To dream of moving on

 

 

“Stop haunting me, Sammy.” Dean whispers to the wind one night.

It was a throw away line, tossed over a bloodied shoulder as Dean hacked away at bones too big and deformed to be human.

Sam stands just behind his brother, arm outstretched, fingers mere inches from a sweat soaked back. Sam couldn’t tell if Dean was reacting to the ghost of Sam’s hand or the ghost of the Sam in his head. But Dean’s plea is made of steel, a sharp blade molded from grief. So Sam lets his arm drop to his side and moves away. He takes up his now usual vigilant position, watching the perimeter of the graveyard while Dean’s attention is on the dismemberment of his kill. A quick salt and burn and there is one less evil thing in the world. Dean’s eyes never leave the fire and he doesn’t move until the last of the embers dies away.

Sam follows Dean to his car, deftly he twists his formless body through metal and leather to rest in the back seat. It had taken him far too long to learn how to do that. Dean wrenches open the door but hesitates with the getting in. Instead, he stands for a few minutes, half bent over, looking into the interior. A strange look of sadness crosses his face, combined with the glint of the moonlight, he looks too old too soon. With a sigh, Dean slams the door shut again, locking it with a sense of finality, and walks away. Sam can do nothing but watch him leave.

 _“You wouldn’t be haunting him if he knew you were there.”_

Sam didn’t grace the disembodied words with a reply.

 

**

 

V. Throw away boy.

 

Dean was crashing. It was clear that in the months since the crash Dean had pulled his way of life tight around him, like a violent safety blanket. No one got through his barriers and nothing got out. And with every move Sam made, trying to get closer, trying to push through the veil of reality that separated them, he could see he was making everything that much harder.

The day Sam saw his brother reaching for an exorcism ritual, he knew he had gone about everything all wrong.

“Dammit, Sam. I burned you.”

That was true. Sam had followed Dean to Kansas where his ashes rested with Mom and Dad’s. Well at least most of him was in Kansas. Apparently Dean had snuck some of him to Palo Alto, and Jess. Then Dean had taken everything of Sam’s and their father’s and burned it. Not out of anger or grief, but out of practicality. You don’t become what you hunt.

When everything was dust, Dean was completely alone.

Sam sat on the bed next to Dean, and watching his brother as he prepared, his face a mask of grim determination. Sam winced at the first few syllables of whispered Latin. Searing agony was mixed with a sense of pride at how good Dean’s pronunciation had gotten, but damn that shit hurt.

Sam imagined he heard tearing, but he couldn’t tell if it was the shredding of material or skin. All he could feel was pain as two white sheets folded involuntarily out of him.

“Dean, STOP!”

Sam cried out, low and loud, but Dean’s words only grew stronger and more assured as he continued with the incantation. As the verbal assault became more powerful, Sam’s new appendages fluttered to his defense, spanning out and knocking the journal from Dean’s hand.

Dean stared numbly at where the book should have been for a moment before he slowly turned to look at the angelic apparition next to him.

“Sam? What the fuck?”

 

**

 

VI. Long passed truth.

 

Dean didn’t say anything for the longest time. He just sat there, not moving, not reaching out. Sam holds himself still, afraid to move least this mirror image of his brother cracked. Sam could only tell Dean what he was told. Fate had made a boo boo, which sounded ridiculous when spoken aloud outside the white space that passes for Heaven’s waiting room. Sam knew that Dean wasn’t on speaking terms with Destiny on the best of days, preferring to carve his own path and dark eyes only got darker as Sam told his tale.

Dad was meant to die, and did. Sam was not supposed to die, but did. Dean was touch and go, his last breath hanging on his force of will, and it wasn’t in Dean’s nature to give up.

“Dean, say something.”

“I can’t talk to you, Sam. You’re not here.”

“Yes I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

Sam huffed out a breath he didn’t need. One pristine wing reached out and cuffed Dean around the head,

“Dammit, ow.”

“Felt that did you?”

“I was just learning to do this with out you.”

“No you weren’t.”

“Yeah, well, I was working up to it.”

With a cautious hand, Dean reached out to lightly run his fingers over the tip of a wing. Sam smiles sadly.

“So what do we do now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey. . . Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you fly?”

 

FIN


End file.
